CHAPTER XXIV
Genius takes a century or more to become recognised,—but Beauty illumines this mortal scene as swiftly as a flash-light. Brief it may be, but none the less brilliant and blinding; and men who are for the most part themselves unintelligent and care next to nothing for intellectuality, go down like beaten curs under the spell of physical loveliness, when it is united to a dominating consciousness of charm. Consciousness of charm is a powerful magnet. A woman may be beautiful, but if she is of a nervous or retiring disposition and sits awkwardly in the background twiddling her thumbs she is never a success. She must know her own power, and, knowing it, must exercise it. “Old” Diana May had failed to learn this lesson in the days of her girlhood,—she had believed, with quite a touching filial faith, in the pious and excessively hypocritical twaddle her father talked, about the fascination of “modest, pretty girls, who were unconscious of their beauty”—with the result that she had seen him, with other men, avoid such “modest, pretty girls” altogether, and pay devoted court to immodest, “loud” and impertinent women, who asserted their “made-up” good looks with a frank boldness which “drew” the men on like a shoal of herrings in a net, and left the “modest, pretty girls” out in the cold. “Old” Diana had, by devotion to duty and constancy in love, missed all her chances,—but the “young” Diana, albeit “of mature years,” knew better now than to “miss” anything. She was mistress of her own situation, so completely that the hackneyed expression of “all London at her feet” for once proclaimed a literal truth. London is, on the whole, very ready to have something to worship,—it is easily led into a “craze.” It is a sort of Caliban among cities,—a monster that capers in drink and curses in pain, having, as Shakespeare says of his uncouth creation: “A forward voice to speak well of his friend,” and a “backward voice to utter foul speeches and detract.” But for once London was unanimous in giving its verdict for Diana May as the most beautiful creature it had ever seen. Photographers, cinema-producers, dressmakers, tailors, jewellers besieged her; she was like the lady of the Breton legend, who lived at the top of a brazen tower, too smooth and polished for anyone to climb it, or for any ladder to be supported against it, and whose face at the window drove all beholders mad with longing for the unattainable. One society versifier made a spurt of fame for himself by describing her as “a maiden goddess moulded from a dream,” whereat other society versifiers were jealous, and made a little commotion in the press by way of advertisement. But Diana herself, the centre of all the stir, showed no sign of either knowing or appreciating the social excitement concerning her, and her complete indifference only made her more desirable in the eyes of her ever-increasing crowd of admirers.
Once established in her flat with her chaperone, Mrs. Beresford, she lived the most curiously removed life from all the humanity that surged and seethed around her. The few appearances she made at operas, theatres, restaurants and the like were sufficient to lift her into the sphere of the recognised and triumphant “beauty” of the day. Coarse and vulgar seemed all the “faked” portraits of the half-nude sirens of stage and music-hall in the pictorial press, compared with the rare glimpses of the ethereal, almost divine loveliness which was never permitted to be copied by any painter or photographer. Once only did an eager camera-man press the button of his “snapshot” machine face to face with Diana as she came out of a flower-show,—she smiled kindly as she passed him and he thought himself in heaven. But when he came to develop his negative it was “fogged,” as though it had had the light in front of it instead of behind it, as photography demands. This accident was a complete mystification, as he had been more than usually careful to take up a correct position. However, other photographers were just as unfortunate, and none were able to obtain so much as a faint impression of the fair features which dazzled every male beholder who gazed upon them. Artists, even the most renowned R.A.’s, were equally disappointed,—she, the unapproachable, the cold, yet enchanting “maiden goddess moulded from a dream” would not “sit” to any one of them,—would not have anything to do with them at all, in fact—and fled from them as though she were a Daphne pursued by many Apollos. A very short time sufficed to surround her with a crowd of adorers and would-be lovers, chief and most persistent among them being Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, and—that antique Adonis, her father, James Polydore May. The worthy James had all his life been in the habit of forming opinions which were diametrically opposed to the opinions of everyone else,—and pursuing this course always to his own satisfaction, he had come to the conclusion that this “Diana May” who declared herself to be his daughter, was an artful demi-mondaine and adventuress with a “craze.” He had frequently heard of people who imagined themselves to be the reincarnated embodiments of the dead. “Why, God bless my soul, I should think so!” he said to a man at the Club who rallied him about his openly expressed admiration for the “new beauty” who bore the same name as that of his “drowned” daughter—“I met a woman once who told me she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra! Now this girl, just because she happens to have my name, sticks to her idea, that she is my Diana——”
“You’d like her to be, wouldn’t you?” chuckled his friend. “But if she takes you for her father——”
“She does—poor child, she does!” and James Polydore May sighed. “You would hardly believe it——”
“Why not?”—and the friend chuckled again—“You’re quite old enough!”
With this unkind shot from a bent bow of malice he went off, leaving James Polydore in an angry fume. For he—James—was not “old”—he assured himself—he was not old,—he would not be old! His wife was “old”—women age so quickly!—but he—why he was “in the prime of life;” all men over sixty are—in their own opinion. The beautiful Diana had ensnared him,—and his sensual soul being of gross quality, was sufficiently stimulated by her physical charm to make him eager to know all he could of her. She herself had not been in the least surprised when he found out her address and came to visit her. The presence of Mrs. Beresford rather disconcerted him,—that lady’s quiet good sense, elegant manners and evident affection for the lovely “girl” she chaperoned, were a little astonishing to him. Such a woman could not be the keeper of a lunatic? Diana never entered into the matter of her relationship with James Polydore to Mrs. Beresford,—it entertained her more or less ironical humour to see her own father playing the ardent admirer, and whenever Mr. May called, as he often did, she always had some laughing remark to make about her “old relative,” who was, she declared, “rather a bore.” Mrs. Beresford was discreet enough to ask no questions, and so James Polydore came and went, getting no “forrader” with the fair one, notwithstanding all his efforts to make himself agreeable, and to dislodge from her mind the strange obsession which possessed it.
One day he went to see Sophy Lansing—never a favourite of his—and tried to find out what she thought of the “Diana May” whose name was now almost one to conjure with. But Sophy had little patience to bestow on him.
“An adventuress, of course!” she declared. “I am surprised you don’t take the trouble to prosecute her for presuming to pass herself off as your daughter! And I’ll tell you this much—Diana—your Diana—never was drowned!”
James Polydore’s mouth opened,—he stared, wondering if he had heard aright.